OKC animal rescuers, welfare officers find 6 dead dogs underneath I-40 overpass

Animal welfare officers are hoping increased awareness can help them in an investigation after animal rescuers found several dead dogs underneath an Oklahoma City overpass.

Workers for Miller's Cause Animal Rescue and The Marlee Project, two animal welfare nonprofits based in Oklahoma City, said that a successful attempt to rescue a pitbull wandering down Interstate 40 last Wednesday led to their discovery of a site with six dog carcasses near Tinker Diagonal Street.

Angie Tomlinson, co-founder of Miller's Cause Animal Rescue, told News 9 Monday that the dogs could not have died of natural causes, and believed that some of them had been tossed from the overpass or even shot to death.

"There's no way two dogs laid themselves back-to-back on their sides and died naturally," Tomlinson said. "When you look at (another) dog, it doesn't have a lower jaw or a face. It has the top of its skull but all of the bottom is missing. It looks like it's been shot."

Investigators with Oklahoma City Animal Welfare found the dogs were in different stages of decomposition, according to Animal Welfare Superintendent Jon Gary. There was nothing linking the dogs to an owner, Gary said, and no surveillance cameras nearby to help with the investigation.

More: Police arrest man in Luther after dogs found shot dead outside store in late February

The case is the latest in several animal cruelty-related cases tackled by local law enforcement. Last Monday and Tuesday, authorities arrested two Deer Creek Middle School students after video circulated online allegedly showing them beating two puppies. And since January, police have been investigating the drownings of at least four dogs in the pond at Edwards Park in northeast Oklahoma City.

"Unfortunately, there were no witnesses to the incident at Edwards Park," Gary told The Oklahoman. "That has been a challenge. We've worked with Crime Stoppers and even some local donors to offer rewards, but we just haven't had any good leads on those dogs."

The discovery of the I-40 site also occurred during the same week Oklahoma City's welfare shelter temporarily closed after an infectious respiratory disease outbreak at the facility led to the deaths of several dogs. As of Tuesday, the shelter is still closed.

Related: Overcrowding poses challenges for OKC area animal shelters

Tomlinson told News 9 the high population of dogs in the state represented a "crisis" that neither shelters nor rescues could adequately address, because the state is "still producing more dogs than there are homes for."

"We have to really work as a state and a community to increase funding, to increase resources and access to spay/neuter laws, and make laws that are enforceable and then enforce them," Tomlinson said.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: 6 dogs found dead under OKC I-40 overpass, baffling investigators